I lead Quiet Time this morning: I spoke on Psalm 37, and talked about
how we can think a bit about the future, but we should really use this
time to concentrate on what we are doing here, now. I played the S
Club 7 song "Reach", which talks about 'reaching for the stars, for
you heart's desire', which tied in nicely to the psalm. It went quite
well, but I was a bit flustered at the beginning as I had to run all
the way up to my room and back with a USB cable to play the song
through a laptop, as it turned out my mp3 player was not powerful
enough on its own to play music over the speakers. People came up to
me afterwards and said it was good, which was encouraging. Following Quiet Time, we restarted our teaching on the Holy Spirit.
This lead to a fairly intense debate over the meaning of Matthew
12:31-32: "Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be
forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be
forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be
forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be
forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come."
It was interesting to talk about for a while, but I'm still not sure
what it really means! Anyone with ideas and reasons for their views,
please add them as comments to this entry! After the lectures we prayed for the situation in Iran, where there is
also persecution against Christians. After that we performed our usual
Community Care duties. It seemed to me that we got them done really
quickly today, but actually it took about the same amount of time as
usual! I had a little bit of free time after that, so I went to the
prayer room. I found a copy of the orders of service for many
ceremonies in the Anglican tradition in the room, and thought I would
read the marriage ceremony. Some people cry at weddings. I got through
reading the first two paragraphs and started crying! The promises made
by each partner in a wedding service are so absolute and life changing
- one must be so certain of their meaning and power before saying them
for real! We then had our first outreach meeting. We didn't actually get to talk
much about India as there are still some details they need to confirm.
We played some 'getting to know you' games instead. Getting to know
the other students going to India with me is a good idea. We will be
working as a team, so we need to start getting to know lots about each
other. At the same time though, we have been warned against getting
too much into 'the India group' and 'the Poland group' when not in the
outreach meetings. For this phase of the YWAM DTS course, we are all
just students at Holmsted Manor. We are not overseas yet, so we should
mix together with everyone as much as possible. After dinner I played Uno and other card games with some of the other
students, then came upstairs to write this. It has been another quick,
but full day. The weeks are just shooting past so quickly! I'm still
really pleased to be here though. This is such an amazing life. "Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard
Version, copyright (c)2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry
of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."
how we can think a bit about the future, but we should really use this
time to concentrate on what we are doing here, now. I played the S
Club 7 song "Reach", which talks about 'reaching for the stars, for
you heart's desire', which tied in nicely to the psalm. It went quite
well, but I was a bit flustered at the beginning as I had to run all
the way up to my room and back with a USB cable to play the song
through a laptop, as it turned out my mp3 player was not powerful
enough on its own to play music over the speakers. People came up to
me afterwards and said it was good, which was encouraging. Following Quiet Time, we restarted our teaching on the Holy Spirit.
This lead to a fairly intense debate over the meaning of Matthew
12:31-32: "Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be
forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be
forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be
forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be
forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come."
It was interesting to talk about for a while, but I'm still not sure
what it really means! Anyone with ideas and reasons for their views,
please add them as comments to this entry! After the lectures we prayed for the situation in Iran, where there is
also persecution against Christians. After that we performed our usual
Community Care duties. It seemed to me that we got them done really
quickly today, but actually it took about the same amount of time as
usual! I had a little bit of free time after that, so I went to the
prayer room. I found a copy of the orders of service for many
ceremonies in the Anglican tradition in the room, and thought I would
read the marriage ceremony. Some people cry at weddings. I got through
reading the first two paragraphs and started crying! The promises made
by each partner in a wedding service are so absolute and life changing
- one must be so certain of their meaning and power before saying them
for real! We then had our first outreach meeting. We didn't actually get to talk
much about India as there are still some details they need to confirm.
We played some 'getting to know you' games instead. Getting to know
the other students going to India with me is a good idea. We will be
working as a team, so we need to start getting to know lots about each
other. At the same time though, we have been warned against getting
too much into 'the India group' and 'the Poland group' when not in the
outreach meetings. For this phase of the YWAM DTS course, we are all
just students at Holmsted Manor. We are not overseas yet, so we should
mix together with everyone as much as possible. After dinner I played Uno and other card games with some of the other
students, then came upstairs to write this. It has been another quick,
but full day. The weeks are just shooting past so quickly! I'm still
really pleased to be here though. This is such an amazing life. "Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard
Version, copyright (c)2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry
of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."
